Are you letting your dreams of financial freedom slip through your fingers, always putting them off until tomorrow? Join us for today’s special roundtable discussion, where we explore the art of not postponing gratification while still pursuing your financial freedom. Our featured guest is none other than the “Ordinary Sherpa” herself, Heidi Dusek, who joins Doc G and Len Penzo in this insightful conversation.
Discover the delicate balance between securing your future financial freedom and living in the present. Learn how to achieve financial independence without sacrificing the joys of today. Plus we delve into the potential impact of achieving financial freedom at a young age, including the challenges of leaving your old community and forming a new financial freedom community.
In the second half of our episode, DepositAccounts.com, we examine the unforeseen changes that early retirement can bring into your life.
And last but not least, our year-long trivia competition is reaching its climax! Who will come closer to being crowned the ultimate champion? Stay tuned for Doug’s opera-themed trivia challenge!
For comprehensive show notes, including additional resources and references, please visit: https://www.stackingbenjamins.com/accelerate-financial-freedom-roundtable-heidi-dusek-1424.
For even deeper insights, curated links, and in-depth discussions on the topics covered, be sure to explore our newsletter, “The 201,” available at StackingBenjamins.com/201.
Sit back, relax, and enjoy the episode!
Our Topic: A Few Word Description
Don’t Defer Your Dreams Until FIRE (The Fioneers)
During our conversation you’ll hear us mention:
- Balancing aggressive financial freedom pursuit with living for today
- Prioritizing your goals
- When is it worth to live for today
- The pros and cons of delayed gratification
Watch On Our YouTube Channel:
Our Contributors
A big thanks to our contributors! You can check out more links for our guests below.
Heidi Dusek
Another thanks to Heidi Dusek for joining our contributors this week! Hear more from Heidi on her show, Ordinary Sherpa: Family Adventure Coaching and Design at Ordinary Sherpa: Family Adventure Coaching and Design on Apple Podcasts. You can also find her at Ordinary Sherpa on Facebook and Instagram
Doc G
Hear more from Doc G by checking out his site and subscribing to his podcast: Earn & Invest.
Grab your copy of his hit book, Taking Stock: A Hospice Doctor’s Advice on Financial Independence, Building Wealth, and Living a Regret-Free Life.
Len Penzo
Visit Len Penzo dot Com for the off-beat personal finance blog for responsible people.
Doug’s Game Show Trivia
- What is the total capacity of the main concert hall of the Sydney Opera House?
DepositAccounts
Thanks to DepositAccounts.com for sponsoring Stacking Benjamins. DepositsAccounts.com is the #1 place to go when you’re looking to see if your rate is the BEST rate on savings, CDs, money markets, and even checking accounts! Check out ALL of the rates ranked from best to worst (and see the national averages) at DepositAccounts.com.
Join Us Monday!
Tune in on Monday when we’ll share our top five ways to cut expenses now so you can stuff more savings into your plan!
Miss our last show? Check it out here: Travel Savings Hacks: Reward Programs, Travel Guides, and Best Practices (with Lee Huffman) SB1423
Written by: Kevin Bailey
Episode Transcript
To Homer, the Wall Street genius! Yeah!
Hey Homer, how come you got money to
burn? Or singe, anyway. Yeah Homer, what’s your secret investment? Take a guess. Uh, pumpkins? Yeah, that’s right Barney. This year I invested in pumpkins. They’ve been going up the whole month of October. And I got a feelin they’re gonna peak right around January.
And bang! That’s when I’ll cash in.
Live from Joe’s mom’s basement, it’s The Stacking Benjamins
Show.
I’m Joe’s mom’s neighbor, Doug, and today we’re diving into the world of dreams. and how not to delay them until retirement. And to help us, we welcome a woman taking a break here with her family. It’s the woman behind Ordinary Sherpa, Heidi Dussek. Plus, the guy who’s always happy to take a look at a rash for me, Dot G.
Hey man, thanks, by the way. It’s almost out of that one last crevice. And finally, a guy we can’t seem to keep out of the building, Len Penzo. But that’s not all. Halfway through the show, I’ll share my… Operatic trivia question, and now a guy who travels all around the world collecting the best personal finance advice for you and won’t shut up about it.
It’s Joe Saul Sehy.
Did I tell you I went to Bali, Doug? Did I tell you? Oh, for God’s sakes. Did I? Did I? Hey, everybody.
Welcome to The lightning bolt could only strike me now.
Traveling. For the Wynn Podcast, I’m Joe Saul Sehy. Average Joe Money on Twitter. And, uh, what a day I’ve had today, Doug. We were supposed to record this an hour earlier.
And an hour before that, I’m sitting at my eye doctor, getting ready for the appointment. And I go, oh crap, I
might not be
able to see anything. So luckily though, we were able to get the band back together. So thank you to all of our participants. So let’s meet these kind individuals. We’ll talk to our guest of honor last. Let’s start deep under Los Angeles, where in his bunker, Mr. Len Penzo joins us. How are you, man? Great. You know, I had a
colleague.
He was 35 years old. He went to the eye doctor. That’s when he found out he was colorblind, if you can actually believe that. It took him until he was 35 years old. The guy was shocked. It hit… And it hit him right out of the
purple. Oh, God!
It
was so funny, Doug. I thought that was a joke. And then I’m like, oh, he’s not
kidding. He’s among his better deliveries. Well done, Mr. Penzo. Thank
you. Thank you, Doug. Thank you very much. Starting to get better at that. And Mr. The gentleman with us from Chicago, just north of Chicago, where he and I ate dinner a few weeks ago at a great restaurant.
Doc G is here. How are you, man?
Well, I’m a little worse off because they just announced that that restaurant is closing and it’s shutting its doors. They’re closing and they’re shutting their door like at the end of the week.
Oh, we gotta, we gotta go back.
I don’t know if that has anything to do with Joe being one of their last
customers.
Right, there is no correlation to me coming to Evanston, Illinois and that restaurant closing. No correlation at all. And the woman who, frankly, the only reason we had her back was to see if she actually was coming back from Alaska, or if she got attacked by bears, Heidi Dusik is here. How are you? Hi.
Good to see you.
Yeah, good to see you too. Yes, we are back from Alaska, but there are many crazy stories from that place, I tell you.
I gotta say, I love following you on social media and for people who want to follow Heidi, which you should, we will link to your social media stuff on our show notes page, but it looked like a great time, but for people that don’t know what the heck we’re talking about, you took your family.
out of school, out of everything they did. Talk about the gap year you’re doing right
now. Yeah, gosh, we’re on the tail end, it feels like. Uh, starting in January, we pulled the kids from school, took an intentional break from work and life, and have been traveling around the country in an RV. It’s been a wild ride.
It’s been really interesting. So just to give you like a flavor, though, of Alaska, it rained 40 of the 60 days we were there. We had an earthquake, a tsunami, and I don’t know how many wildfire evacuations, which is interesting when like, you don’t exist in their systems. Like what’s the text number for like, where am I supposed to check in if I’m safe?
I don’t even know. So crazy stuff, you know, off grid, isolation, all that kind of stuff. But then also like really amazing communities and like making friends and parking lots and hanging out and it’s, it’s been so fascinating to see life in a totally different
perspective. Heidi. I love my children. They are, they are 28.
I, I loved them when they were your kids age, but, but living in the, with them every single second of every single day, there must have been days where you wanted to put one or two of them out next to the road. Ah, okay.
I love my children too. So I do think there is this out, you know, the, the, in the RV, yes, it’s like 327 square feet.
Not that I’ve measured, but we know that anytime like someone is driving us crazy, we, we have to be outside. Like, we can always stop, get outside, go somewhere, do something, so. While we do have our own spaces in the RV, the outside is a beautiful place and it’s usually pretty calming, so that helps all of us, maybe me more than others.
Well, I’m, I’m certainly glad that you’re safe and the family is safe and you guys have made it almost to the finish line of this year. We’re going to talk about that today, specifically not doing the thing that most people do, which is delaying gratification, instead doing the type of thing Heidi’s doing, taking gap years, taking time off, speeding up the clock.
So, let’s get into it. We’ve got Heidi here, we got Len, we got Doc G, we got Doug, but before that, Heidi, do you remember the rules from last time you were here? No, no. Okay. We got to go over those first. So hold on a second, everybody, as we give Heidi the rules. That’s some of them, Heidi. And
that’s because of the lawsuit, Joe?
Well, we, we usually don’t talk about that. Hold on. There’s just two more, just two more. Hold on. And that’s how we got around the lawsuit. Gotcha. So, Heidi’s here, Len’s here, Doc G, and Doug. So, uh, let’s get this conversation started.
Today, we take some inspiration from a piece by the Pioneers, which it’s the timing here is fantastic because they are people who are living their dream right now. They’re living in an, in a converted van, not down by the river, but all over the place. They’re going to be pulling into my driveway. In fact, uh, in a couple of days, which is cool.
And Heidi. You were just speaking at their conference. The Pioneers had a, had a conference about this very topic.
Yeah, yeah. And beautiful Winter Park. And I, I don’t know if you’ll ever be able to schedule peak color again, but that was, that was in like a nice little touch that we all arrived in these beautiful mountains.
And it was peak color change. It was gorgeous. And 40 amazing people.
That’s fabulous. Fantastic. And what was your talk about?
Well, I was on a panel where we were trying to expose people to different lifestyle designs. So I think it’s slightly unique that people do this with kids in their mid forties, as opposed to, you know, younger childless individuals.
So I spoke a little bit about how do you make your home a destination of choice. I talked a lot about our joy audit and really how do you prepare emotionally. Not just financially for something like this.
We’re going to talk a lot of today about that third part. How do you prepare emotionally? Cause I think a lot of people aren’t in the right space to even get there.
Uh, the piece that we’re referencing, you don’t have to have in front of you, but if you want to head to our show notes page at stackingbenjamins. com it’s called don’t defer your dreams. Until fire, fire being financial independence, retire early. And this is an interview with a woman named Ingrid and they actually walk through Ingrid’s goals and what she’s thinking about, but the place that I want to start this conversation with, let’s go into this for each of you personally.
For you, when did you realize that delaying gratification longer wasn’t going to work for you? Doc, let’s start with you. This piece starts off with this woman talking about how she got on the financial independence train. When did you get on the train and go, you know what? I think this is going to be about more living for, uh, Doc G and his family.
I think that for me came very late. Maybe like it did for Ingrid, I was very much the old school financial independence retire early advocate, right? Those early people who were talking about this in the 2000s really brought up this idea that work is anathema and we are going to grind it out. until we have enough money to then quit.
And so I kind of followed that role model. I worked as hard as I could. I made as much money as I could
get that savings rate to like 70,
80%. It was very high. And then I also pushed up the earnings, right? So I was working 60, 70 hour work weeks and taking calls in the middle of the night. I ran my own practice.
I covered all my own calls 24 seven. I mean, I was really, really working a lot, but it created a financial bounty. And so, yeah. I definitely deferred gratification. I said, well, I know that. I can save as much as I can right now, I can make a lot of money now, and that one day that’ll give me freedom.
Interesting, because I also realized that my father died at 40, well before he hit financial independence. So, that should have been one of those kind of warnings, but for me I always felt like I was going to live a long time, so it was fine to grind it out when I was young and healthy, and the kids were young, and it felt like the right thing to do.
It was only afterwards where I looked back and said, You know what? I didn’t have to… Do that. Like I could have found much more of a sense of purpose. Maybe worked part time, maybe spent more time doing the part of medicine I liked, which was hospice and palliative care. Maybe that could have taken up a much bigger part of my professional activities.
I might have taken longer to retire, but I would have enjoyed it more. I probably wouldn’t have burned out of medicine. So it was only unfortunately after that. I think I really came to realize
that when you retired earlier than a lot of people retire, but you really had a normal, I think what people consider normal progression, right?
Work for A single employer for a long period of time, but I remember a story you told me a while ago. Where you kind of though mentally got off the train. You’re like, you know what? I’m no, I’m not interested in advancing in the company. I’m interested in rounding out my life. When did that switch happen in your head?
I was
probably, oh, in my 40s. I was definitely in my 40s. I was probably mid 40s, I guess is where it was. I was working on my vacations and my kids were getting older and I was like, this is ridiculous. You know, I’m doing this to make more money and get better raises. And it just, I was like, It’s not worth it anymore.
It’s, you know, I’m going to do what’s expected of me. I’m going to do more than is expected in me as well, but on my terms, on my terms, not on the company’s terms. And, um, I was much happier after I did that. And I also decided I was going to stop trying to climb the corporate ladder at that point as well.
I was like, I’m, I’m satisfied. I’m content. I make good money. I don’t need to be the richest man in the world or whatever, be CEO of the company. And boy, it was such a release and such a freedom that came over me when that finally happened. So, uh, yeah, I’m just sorry it happened a little late
for me. So you wish like Doc, you would have done it earlier.
I do
wish I, yeah, I, I really do. I think I missed out on a few
things. Well, so Heidi, comparatively, when we talked to Len and to Doc, You certainly pulled the trigger much earlier. I know Len’s talking about planning vacations. You’re like, oh honey, vacations, hold my beer. I’ll take, I’ll take a whole year.
I’ll see your vacation and up, up, you know, up you by a lot. When did you make the mental change that, you know what, I’m not going to delay this?
Yeah, I think part of it is seeing all of you go before me and saying, gosh, there’s a lot of stuff I want to do and that I know my body won’t be able to do in 10, 15 years.
I mean, I’m only 40. I never remember how old I am. I think I’m 43. This is a bad sign, right? Um, but I was already starting to feel like I’m not quite as fit as I used to be. I’m feeling like things are sore. My, you know, whatever. It’s hard to complain about that now, but then I see my parents who worked so hard all their lives and retired and kind of aren’t doing the things they wanted to do because their bodies aren’t able to.
So I had that on one end. And on the other end, I have my kids who are 13, 11, and 7, and there’s so many things I want to do with them, and I know, like, I’ve got this window of time that, gosh, in 10 years from now, when they’re out of their house or doing whatever their lives look like, they’re not going to want to spend as much time with me.
And so I’ve got this, like, unique, golden opportunity. To really leverage the time, you know, the next, this year, I guess, is the time that my son decided was when we were going to go because, you know, it’s, it’s the place where we’re healthy enough. We can ski hard if we wanted to, we can bike hard, we can hike, we can do all these things that we still love to do and do them with our kids.
It’s so phenomenal because I’m going to misquote this study because I didn’t know we were going to go here, but I believe. The study showed we’re going to have, maybe if we have children, we’re going to have maybe 18 years with them our entire life. And most of those years are going to be before the time that they’re like, we’ll get all the first five years and then it slows down until they’re 18.
And by the time they’re 18. We’re only going to get to spend maybe cumulatively another year or two with them the rest of their life. And so to front and load that, Heidi, I don’t know, have you seen that study? Yeah,
I know what you’re talking about. I couldn’t quote it. Yeah. You know, like, but I’ve, yeah, I’ve definitely
seen it.
I’m in the ballpark there. So to think about that ahead of time, like you’re not going to get those years back.
Right. And all I kept seeing is like, time is going so fast, right? Like, I come, I went to that retreat and I swear I came home and my son’s voice changed an octave and I was like, I was gone five days, you know, like, what happened here?
So I, if we can figure out, and I think we kind of have, like, how can we actually slow this time down a little bit? by spending more of it with them.
Well, you saw how much time has changed with us too. I mean, you were here, what, three months ago? And Doug’s voice has changed an octave. So it’s, it’s
happening with
happening.
I’m having the change. Doc, you were going to say something?
I was just going to say, you don’t have to worry about it, Heidi, because kids nowadays are moving back for another 10 years after college anyway. So you’re going to get plenty of time with that. Got
that. Remember the old extended records? You know, the ones, Len, that were, you know, the extended replay?
Heidi’s going to get that too, which is exciting. You know, they start off with this introduction with this woman and she talks about her goals. Once she gets to the point that she has enough and she feels like she’s comfortable, she has begun setting up goals. Her goal is to learn a new language every two years and to get conversant with that language.
Now, Heidi, I see you shaking your head. Yeah, that’s cool. But I think That’s it? And I don’t want to be judgy about somebody else’s goal, but I definitely, I’m not sure that you can build a, an existence around just learning new languages, or, or Doc, do you think you can? Oh,
yes, I definitely think you can. So, I’m a big fan of this idea that purpose actually probably shouldn’t be goal oriented.
I, in some ways, I think that’s toxic and dangerous. Um, and we’ve seen that. Well, the problem is a lot of people have these big, audacious goals, right? For some people, it’s a little bit more selfish, I want to be a billionaire. Or for other people, it’s like, I want to do something and change the world, I want to cure cancer, or I want to affect as many people as possible.
While that sounds wonderful, a lot of those things are kind of out of our hands. Like, these big, audacious goals, we do not have nearly as much agency to change them as we think we do. And a lot of times it has to do with luck and being the right person at the right time. And so when you set these huge audacious goals out there, you’re very likely to fail them.
And when you fail them, it causes anxiety. And then you’re like, well, what is my purpose? And I thought was my purpose is not going well, and it’s not feeling good. So I think we should do the exact opposite, especially if you find yourself in a good financial position. Your sense of purpose and how you spend your time should be based on what brings you joy and fulfillment.
And so if learning another language brings you joy and fulfillment, I think that’s wonderful and I think it’s a really good way. And when it stops doing that, the process of doing it, when the process of doing it is no longer enjoyable anymore, It’s probably time to move on to something new because we have a very limited amount of time we were just talking about in our lives.
And so to me winning the game is filling that time with as much meaningful and joyful and purposeful activities as possible. It’s not a goal. It’s not getting to some end because we found that when you kind of shoot for an end, usually when you get there, you actually find yourself empty as opposed to fulfilled.
and fearful that you either gonna lose what you are shooting to gain or you kind of double down and say now i need to do double whatever that was because i’ve lost my sense of purpose once i’ve reached the goal so i very much agree with these kind of what i would call little p purpose this idea that purpose should be much more process oriented and much less
goal oriented.
Doc taught me that a few years ago so now that’s why my big goal in life is just to finish the whole basket of free bread. at the restaurant before anybody else can get to it. And how’s that going?
How’s that
going, Doug? Are you making it? I’m absolutely crushing that goal. I’m glad. Makes you feel
so good about yourself.
We’re so proud. We’re, we’re not seeing any difference in your waistline. We really aren’t. Mom is, mom is so proud. Letting you on that train. You know what? I don’t
have any end goal if that’s, I’m just doing what I enjoy. And let me tell you, I’m enjoying it so far and I’m not running out of anything to do and I’m not bored and I’ve got plenty of.
You know, I’m busy. So everything’s good right now. So, you know, you know, I, I think it’s kind of hard when people retire early. That’s one of the things like, man, if you retire
in 40 or 35, it’s like, man,
life is so long. It’s like, what? You got a lot of life to fill up. So I think it’s quite a challenge to retire
early.
This is why, Doug, I’m not on that train because all the studies that I’ve seen back when I was with American Express, we did all these retirement studies and the average person. When they get to whatever retirement is for them, they have 18 months of euphoria. And then after the 18 months of euphoria, there is this deep, deep, deep, deep depression that I would say 85 to 90 percent of people go through.
I mean, you see it all over the place. And whenever I talk about that, people come up to me and they go, yeah, I felt that. Yeah.
You’re actually proving that. Point actually. So the reason why is people are so caught up in this idea that they have a big audacious purpose and after 18 months when they realize that this big thing they’re supposed to accomplish and do isn’t there, it actually gives them
anxiety.
Yeah, but the second half of that discussion is that it actually where the longing goes toward is what Len talks about retiring early. When my dad retired early, he was 30 and out from General Motors, started when he was 22, retired when he was 52, right? He started hanging out with dudes that were 20 years older than him because everybody his age was still working.
And what we long for, every study I see talks about this. In fact, there’s a great. episode we did on our Stacking Deeds podcast is community. It’s the purpose is enveloped in being a part of a community. And by the way, if it’s hyperlocal and not online, it’s much better than if it’s online. It don’t get me wrong for us.
We got to get it where we get it. Joe, you’re proving
my points over and over again. So the point is by having these big audacious goals, you can or cannot accomplish. You’re not really building community. But if you look at doing things you enjoy doing, and you’re very intentional and joyful about doing it, you tend to build a community around you, right?
So if you love gardening, maybe you start gardening around your house and other people notice, and then maybe they ask you for some tips and you go over to their garden and show them how to do things. Or maybe you join a gardening club, or maybe you write a blog or, you know, become a podcaster. All of those things are connections in community, which come from purpose, but they come from this sense of.
Joyful purpose. I,
I, I don’t think, I don’t think I’m there. The
lady who we’re speaking about the topic who was interviewed here, you know, she’s learning these languages and I’m thinking, man, you know what, if she can learn two more languages, she has an extra skill set that she could exploit. Down the road as
an interpreter or, but why would she wanna make more money when she already has enough money?
Well, does she? But does she, especially if that’s not something that’s joyful to her, isn’t that a waste? Okay, so lemme go to, I mean, you only have a certain amount of time in life. Well, maybe
she does have, I guess she has enough money now, but I mean, you don’t, that’s another thing when you retire so early, it’s just that.
There’s so much unknown out there that I don’t think she can say that she has enough money. I’m sorry. She might have enough money right this minute, but I don’t think she can unless she’s a, you know, got a eight figure, you know, 10 million in the bank right now. I don’t think she can be that confident that she’s going to be well off in 65, 70, 80 years old.
I
just, she did. She did mention a safe withdrawal rate of between two and 3%. So, You know, you’re, you’re talking about world wars and things like that, that have to kind of knock down a, like, let’s say a 2. 5 percent safe withdrawal rate. You gotta really need some, even if you’re talking about 50 or 60 years, you know, when you get to that low on your safe withdrawal rate, it’s pretty hard to knock
someone off.
I guess, I guess I’m just saying it’s easier to retire when you’re older. I mean, it’s great to retire when you’re younger, but boy, when you’re older, you’ve taken, you’ve spent a lot of your life already. And, uh, you know, you don’t have as much runway in front of you and it kind of makes retirement easier.
But it makes it easier on one end, but on the other, you know, we talked about the time equation, right? You can’t get that time back.
That’s the, that’s, that’s, well, there’s, that’s the trade, right? That’s the road. Yeah,
absolutely. Heidi, jump in here. Do you think that learning languages is enough?
Well, if that’s what brings you joy, I am a little bit on Jordan’s bandwagon here.
You’re wrong too. Well, when I think about it, the things that light me up aren’t the same things that lit me up at work, and it’s not as much of an emotional return for me to get dollars in the bank, right? I get more excited sometimes now when I get 100 coaching than I did getting 1, 000 working at work, right?
Like the return on that investment on my time invested in getting the outcome is not the same. It’s not like comparing apples to apples. It seems different. Especially now. So I think if that joy audit, well, I call it the joy audit, there’s another thing. I don’t think we talk about it all when we talk about like sequence of return risk or even in planning out your fine number, so to speak.
And that is, you can also use compound interest on your time and on your health, right? So if we start to think about what is my health going to be like in 20 years? And is that going to be the runway that I want? I mean, what’s the point of longevity if I’m going to be miserable, right? So Maybe I do live to 80 and I retire at 65 or whatever.
Well, those 15 years, I’m, I’m a miserable old person who isn’t well. What was the point, right? I guess there’s a piece of that in the time and energy equation that we don’t
often talk about. And I absolutely love that because I feel like we, we do spend a lot of time talking about money and we don’t spend a lot of time talking about our health.
And I think they’re incredibly intertwined. For sure. Just, just amazingly intertwined. You know, the, the place where, where I get frustrated, doc, about this discussion is just that everything shows that community is where it’s at. Like, I have yet to see a study that says that, and by the way, for the introverts out there, they’re like, no, just, I can be just fine by myself for decades.
Right. And I’ll be good. But every study also shows introverts need community just in a different way. We still need that, uh, just as humans. The problem I see in society, doc, is that we don’t seek that out. We tend to put people away and let me give you an example. I’m a guy who likes football that, uh, uh, Terry Bradshaw is a guy who’s on the shows before the games.
People who don’t know football have no idea who Terry Bradshaw is, but he’s on before the games. And how old do you think he is, Doug? Maybe 80?
70s? No, I think he’s very late 80. He’s, yeah,
- Yeah. Last week, he said some things on the pregame show and Twitter, X, or whatever the hell you call it, blew up with, shouldn’t this guy retire?
Isn’t it time for this guy to retire? Isn’t it time for, and basically what we’re saying is, because of his age, we should put him out to pasture, right? Nah. Nah. We should, we should, we do not as a society for older people seek community, we seek put them in a box. Let’s move them away from community. Like all the things that we do, do not act, I think doc, when you talk about joining a gardening club, that sounds cool.
But I think we have to actively seek that out in our society. It’s just because the old
people smell funny. That’s why we want them to be over there in the box. I mean, if we just give them some deodorant, cool, bring them in.
I think, Joe, you’re confusing retirement with not working because they’re two very different things, right?
Retirement is saying. I’m leaving work. I’m done. That’s it. But the truth of the matter is, I think we do work our whole lives, whether we’re getting paid for it or not. And so a lot of people who are in the quote, unquote, fire movement might leave an employed job where they’re getting paid by an employer, but then they continue to do work.
Some of that work is joyful. Some of that work is for money. Some of that work isn’t, but it’s all work. And so Terry
Bradshaw, well, Mike Jarrell, and is learning two languages every two years enough, and I’m like, no, I don’t think it is. I mean,
I think that’s a form of work. Now, whether you’re getting paid for it or not is a whole other thing.
But it’s, it is something she does that keeps her busy, that she’s excited about it. Why is that more or less positive than going to 5? If your only difference is one you’re getting paid for and one you’re not getting paid for, but if she doesn’t need the money, then that is her form of work. I’d prefer not to even call it work.
That’s her form of purpose. That’s what she’s doing. That’s bringing her joy. I think the fault is that too many people are doing this thing from nine to five for 40 years of their life. They’re calling it work. And that gives them an excuse to do something they hate. And whereas she’s flipping the whole switch and she’s like, well, I’m doing my work, but this work is purposeful.
And I’ve gotten myself to such a good place that I don’t need to make money to support it. So I can do that work. Whether I get paid or not, I think that’s exactly the point.
I will chime in and say on the community side of it, Joe, I think we’re less comfortable with things that are less predictable in general.
So if we retire early, we don’t understand where our community is going to be or if we have to seek it out. One of the I don’t know what you would call it. But one of the like big things people have asked me is like, are your kids socially? Are you worried about like social isolation? And I’m like, no, you should see who my kids talk to.
And the community that has developed that I wouldn’t have been able to predict by doing this big, crazy experiment, so to speak, is much more enriching than having them in school in a very predictable, predictable systematic environment, and I won’t know what the repercussions of that are for years to come, right?
It’ll be interesting 10 years from now to look back, but I think when you talk about people that aren’t in this traditional retirement path, that whole community conversation changes when we don’t understand the predictability of what community looks like. Yeah, if
you’re looking at your job as your source of community, that’s pretty lousy because most people, they leave their job and they lose touch with the people they work with.
It’s an artificial community based on the fact that you’re in the same place same time working for the same employer on the other hand when you take people who have taken money out of the equation in this case they’re just doing things that are purposeful and that they love doing those communities tend to be much more long term they tend to support people through different stages of their lives they tend to be a much More transactional community where you gain and learn from being involved with them and they gain and learn from being involved with you and in fact I tell you it’s even more impactful because when other people see you doing something that you are authentic and intentional about.
You impact their lives, and by doing that, that actually has a much longer term legacy than going to a 9 to 5 does.
I don’t think there’s any debate there. I’m not even sure how we got here, because my direct question was, Is learning two languages enough? I still think it’s not. I still think it’s not.
Maybe what you’re trying to say is it’s not. for you. I think you, but it probably
is for her. Oh, my goodness. We’re going to talk about why Doc G is wrong in the second half of this discussion, because right now we’re going to move on to trivia. For people that are brand new to Stacking Benjamins, we have a weekly trivia contest between our three usual contributors, which are Len Penzo, my co host OG, who’s not here today.
And it’s weird because Doc G, last week you were playing for Len. By the way, Len, he won for you. Oh, my goodness. Thanks, Doc! Now he’s got to beat you by playing for OG, and then Heidi, you’re playing for the amazing Paula Pant. And so, Heidi, that means you’ve got some good news and some bad news. Which one would you like first?
Bring it, bad. Well, the bad news is, is that Paula’s tied for last place, but that’s actually partly good news. As our long time listeners know, because Paula’s usually not tied for last place, she’s in last place by herself. And Paula has had a heck of a run. She’s so brilliant at so many things, but trivia usually is not it, except this year she’s on fire.
So, good news for you, because of her history being in last, that means you get to guess last. So, you have 12, OG has 12. Len has 14 as we’ve got maybe about, uh, what, seven weeks left, I think, in this competition. So getting down there, Len, you can pull ahead by a bunch today, but we need a trivia question.
Doug, what’s our question today?
Hey there, Stackers. I’m Joe’s mom’s neighbor, Doug. Heidi’s travels have really inspired me. Lately, I’ve been thinking about getting an old van and remodeling the inside for adventure. put up some wood paneling, maybe some deep shag carpet, some round sound. Oh, I can even hang some Christmas lights, put them on a dimmer, you know, around the ceiling.
I mean, is that what
you guys did? Wait a minute. Hold on a second, Doug. Is that what, isn’t that what you guys did, Heidi? Nope.
Nope. Not at all. Well, you missed. Oh, you’re missing out. Because mood lighting is the key to any room you can recline in. You know, nearly 5 million people in the U. S. have jobs that allow them to work remotely.
I think I could get used to a nomadic lifestyle. Just me. Alone, thinking about my loneliness in the bleak, vacuous darkness with nothing to distract me from the emptiness of my future. It’ll be great! You know, on second thought, maybe I’ll become a pilot so I can cover more ground. I’ve always wanted to fly to Australia to visit my hero, Crocodile Dundee.
You know, speaking of Australia, today’s trivia question is… Oh my god! Nailed it! Today’s trivia question is, What is the total capacity of the main concert hall of the Sydney Opera House? I’ll be back after I explain to Joe’s mom what I meant when I said she really gets around.
Yeah, that’s a
great conversation.
Didn’t go like I planned. Conversation with mom. Good work. You know, lots of, uh, Australian dollars. They don’t call them Benjamins though. What do they, for our Aussie listeners, what do you call an Australian hundred dollar bill? Dollars. They’re dollars.
They are.
Swear to God. I know one dollar, but what’s a hundred dollar bill?
A
hundred Jackaroos. I don’t know. I wasn’t even asking you.
Doug jumps in there, voice of authority. Uh, Len, you’re going first, man, as our leader. So people spending hundreds and hundreds of dollars to go to symphonies. How many seats? That’s
that place right there on the, on the water, right? The Sydney Opera House, the really cool architecture.
Oh, wow. That’s a good question. Ah, well, let’s see.
I bet it’s more than four.
Yeah, you know what? I wanted to say 10, 000. I mean, that sounds like a good round number. I think that’s a good round number. I’m just gonna go with that. 10,
- 10, 000. Doc, you think that’s high or low? I’m
thinking that’s high. So, I’m gonna say 6,
000.
Well, Heidi, what do you think? You got 10? You got 6?
Uh,
I feel like that’s still… Gosh, okay. So we’ve been to concerts It’s an opera house, though. Like, aren’t those supposed to be a little bit more intimate or something? I don’t know. Not high class over here. I’m gonna go with… Wait, is it like… I can’t go over, right?
No, you can go over. You can go over. Oh, I can go over? You just want to be closest, yeah. Oh, I could be… I could be a doofus here. I’m gonna go with, uh, 3, 000. Oh, I thought
you were going to do it. She didn’t Chelsea
Brennan me. No,
I was
going to, but then I was like, that’s cheap.
I thought we were about to hear the 59.
99, which is what Chelsea Brennan would have done. But, uh, Heidi’s not doing that. All right. We’ve got 3, 000. Is Heidi, that’s your number? Yeah, 3, 000. 3, 000 for Heidi, 6, 000 for Doug. Uh, 10, 000 for Len. Let’s see who’s right. We’ll be right back. Len, you kicked us off with 10, 000. Apparently both Doc and Heidi think that is way too many.
What do you think now? I
really don’t know. 10, 000 was just sticking in my head. It’s gotta be a bigger number though, I think, because Have you seen that place? I mean, it’s gotta make money, right? It’s pretty damn big. Is it? Yeah, I mean, but you think it has
to make money. It looks big
from the pictures. I, I don’t know.
I have no idea. 10, 000. I’m sticking with it.
Doc, you’re now sandwiched in the middle, but, uh, but Heidi was very nice to you. So you got a little room. You feeling good?
Yeah, I’m feeling Heidi was good to me. Um, yeah, who knows? Like, I, I went with Heidi’s reasoning. Um, opera houses tend to be smaller, even though, yes, it seems like a huge structure.
So. I went with a number that I thought even was higher than a normal opera house would have, but still
not crazy. Heidi, were you guys singing opera around the campfire when you were in Alaska? Probably not. You don’t want to hear any of that. campfires?
Did you do any campfires? Honestly, we hardly ever do campfires because I hate, there’s nothing worse than like campfire smoke in your closet, right?
You can’t like wash your, so no, we don’t do campfires that often. So no, no opera here.
No, but you feeling good about the 3, 000 number?
Yeah. And I feel like I kept my integrity and I wasn’t even a jerk about
it. That’s very, very nice. Although on this show, I think you could feel very comfortable. There is no integrity.
Just an opportunity. I wasn’t saying that. Complete
cannibalism here. Doug, who’s our
winner? Well
Joe, I’m not just gonna come right out and tell ya, but what I will say is I am world traveler and budding opera singer, Joe’s mom’s neighbor, Doug. I’m making a list of all the careers I can pick up that might take me to Australia.
So far I’ve got pro surfer, koala trainer, and comedian. Of course, there’s a lot more than that, but… Those are the three I can think of that I’d be best at. And today’s trivia question was, What is the total capacity of the main concert hall of the Sydney Opera House? That was the key to that question. The main concert hall.
While there are three separate theaters inside of the Opera House, the main concert hall is the biggest, and Australian comedian Jim Jefferies, fun fact here, is the only person to have sold out the room, both as a comedian and an opera singer. That means that each time he’s sold an impressive 7, 231 tickets, less than…
No, no, shut your mouth! Shut it! Zip it! Zip! Z zip bop! 7, 231 tickets less than what Len guessed, 3, 231 tickets less than what Doc guessed, and just 231 tickets fewer than what Heidi guessed, because the capacity is 2, 000. 769. Nice.
Wow. Fantastic,
Heidi. You are welcome, Paula. Paula’s not in last anymore. And she
maintained her integrity, too.
Yes! There’s hope for
humanity.
Team Paula won away from being in first place. What the hell’s going on
this year? Paula’s just the first loser now.
Can you call Paula right now and just tell her she’s
close? We should. She is in last. She is in Scotland visiting our friend the Mad Scientist right now, but, um, but I will text her as soon as we’re done and say, guess
what?
This is breaking news for her. I mean,
she should know this. Oh, she’s going to be over the moon ecstatic. That’s all she’s going to talk about now for the next three minutes. Probably come right home. It’s time for the second half of this discussion on getting to your goals earlier and not delaying second half of this discussion.
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That is fantastic. What an awesome tool.
Well, also fantastic is the fact that we were talking about goal setting. Let’s get a little bit tactical. We can maybe get off the fact that, uh, Doc G’s getting this completely wrong. Instead, let’s talk about tactics. Heidi, you’ve been living this lately. Uh, anything you didn’t expect with your, not so much early retirement, but break year, what, what is something that people should Look out for, if they’re looking to take a break here, something maybe unexpected that they didn’t know about.
Yeah,
so I thought, I was going to go into this, I have a podcast, and I thought, well, I’ll just blog about it, like, I’m going to be so excited, I’m going to want to share it. Mm mm. I was tired. Turns out we were all exhausted, and the first couple of months, we really just like, Went to bed at eight o’clock at night.
I mean, I think people thought we were like living the high life, but at the same time, we were doing that from, you know, like 10 to two on a Tuesday. And then we’d go to bed at night. And I was surprised how much we slept, especially the first quarter. I was also surprised that what was once fun became work really quickly.
So you will fill the time, any space that you have, you tend to fill. And when you don’t focus on the things you actually enjoy. It becomes work. So that led me to actually take a break on the podcast, too, just to enjoy what was happening before me. Instead of feeling like I needed to keep everybody else in the loop, I just took a break from everything for a while.
Um, and I think the third thing that really surprised me was how quickly we adapt to what is novel. Meaning, like, it’s new and different and we move every, like, five to seven days. After about six months of that, my kids were like, Okay, it’s not cool anymore, mom. We’re sick of each other. Can we please like go do something cooler?
And it is like, we always had to up the ante. So that was pretty interesting too. I was like, Holy cow, we’re still moving a lot. We’re still doing a lot of really cool things. You know, part of me wanted to be like, do you know what other kids are doing back home? But I tried to restrain a little bit. I still used it though.
I mean, far from perfect
here.
It’s funny. When we were nomads for several months, I found that I wanted more study. I didn’t want to go to a new place. Like I didn’t want more novel. I wanted it. I wanted more same in my life. And so it’s funny how individual that is, which, which is why I love what you’re doing, Heidi, because.
You’re playtesting what the family likes ahead of time instead of like when I would work with people on their retirement goal, they would have all these shiny things they thought were great. And then they get there and they weren’t fulfilling like they thought they would be.
Yeah. Yeah. And it’s interesting now because we’re talking about like what happens after this year because we’re going to go home.
Right. And so how do we make home a destination of choice as opposed to like leaving on vacation all the time? Like we’ve done that for a year. How do we actually be content in our home and be comfortable in our own community? Yeah. Find the things that we loved about gap year and bring it home.
Len, yours wasn’t a gap year, yours was a, I’m now in this new phase of life.
What has surprised you that people should look out for? Well, I don’t know if I
have any real surprises at this point. I mean, everything I’ve expected, everything that I expected has happened. I am actually looking at my expenses a little more closely. Maybe that’s natural, but, uh, if you’ve planned out your retirement well, there really shouldn’t be any Big surprises that I would think,
not even on an emotional level.
Well, I will say
this, I lose track of the days and, and, you know, I honest to goodness, I don’t know if it’s a Tuesday or a Thursday or a Wednesday or a weekend that, I mean, and that’s kind of neat, actually. I mean, it doesn’t matter anymore. It really is cool on a Sunday night comes around and I’m not. I’m not stressing out about going to work on Monday and something that has to be done.
I mean that the relaxation has been, uh, and the lack of stress has been phenomenal. I don’t have any surprise. I guess the only other surprise I have is on the good side. And I have learned quite a bit of things. I have, for example, you know, I have my model train. I realized in this community, this model train community that I had joined.
Somebody gave me a, an idea to do this 3d printing, the stereolithography. I know, you know, the 3d printing for some panels on my, on my train. And I have one right here. I had to learn a new modeling tool and an engineering modeling tool. And I had to learn how to do it. And I mean, I spent 80 hours figuring out this, getting the tool and learning it and all this good stuff.
And I ended up building these things, you know, that are made out of. Plastic, but you know, I, I mean, it was cool. It’s like being at work again and I was enjoying myself. I mean, I, and I’ve learned a new skill
and, uh, and it’s almost
like learning another
language,
almost like learning another language and to that aim, let me say this, that’s one of the things I had on my list too, is to identical with hers was, was to my rusty Spanish was to actually become fluent in it.
That’s one of the things that’s. It’s on my list, and I have not even, I’ve been so busy with other things, learning other things, I haven’t even attempted that yet, so, um, I don’t know, I guess, I don’t know, I’m sorry, I can’t add anything to that other than I, I I have no surprises. And I think if you plan well, if you really think about your retirement and don’t just say, Oh, I’m going to retire.
I have this X dollars and go for it. If you plan for it and think about your retirement for a good couple, three years before you do it, I don’t think you’re going to have a lot of
surprises. Oh, the thing that drove me crazy was the, I’m going to travel and I’m going to play golf. Like, and that was all the thinking people wanted to do.
I’m like, no, we need to get a little more granular about what you’re going to do. Like, I know, I think I could probably do those too. I’m like, I don’t think you can golf every day. And people would go, Oh, I think I can. I think, I think I could golf every day. And then, you know, three weeks into retirement, they’re like, yeah, guess what, I can’t golf every, every single day, doc, you still work as a hospice doctor, but I know after financial independence, you do it.
To the degree that you love it, you do it part time. What changed for you? Did anything change for you emotionally? Was there anything you saw that, uh, that maybe you didn’t expect? Well, certainly, I
mean, retiring didn’t solve really any of my problems, except that I got to not do something I didn’t enjoy, right?
Like, it didn’t really solve any of my life problems above and beyond what problems were caused by work, right? So, I knew that I didn’t want to be in medicine anymore, but, Because I had spent so much time being in medicine, it was the only identity and purpose I had ever really focused on, so I had to completely, in a sense, recreate or at least come to terms with a new sense of purpose and identity.
Maybe a sense of purpose and identity that were always there, but I was ignoring. because I was working so much. So I had to get much more in touch with myself, which was not necessarily an easy process, right? There was some stress. It was very stress inducing to be like, okay, I can stop work and I don’t like work anymore, but what the heck am I going to do with my time?
So I think it’s important to realize that, you know, retiring or stopping work only solves that one problem. You still probably have lots of other life problems. It now gives you more time to work on those other life problems, but they’re not going to just magically go away.
Uh, Heidi. For somebody that wants to take the year off, like you did, saving advice?
Cause I think saving for that would be a big part. You, you know, you can’t just all of a sudden stop work and go, okay, I’m good.
Wouldn’t suggest that it’s not the plan I would go with. So that might be a option 17, but the option that worked best for us was having a good two to three year understanding of what our yearly expenses were, and then aiming for the high end of that.
So we did a lot of experiments of like, if things. went off the rails. What would that budget like? So for example, we decided to take a, uh, something like 40 days in an RV during peak gas prices when it was like 6 a gallon or something. And I was like, this is going to be a good stress test for us to be like, how do we feel spending 6 a gallon to fill an RV that gets roughly six miles per gallon, things like that.
So we had a good understanding of, of roughly a year’s worth of expenses. Then we, um, Use that as our goal number. We tried to live off of my salary, save my husband’s salary as much as we could. We had a couple of saving tools in place, and then we had kind of the backup plan, right? So this is our first line of defense.
What’s the backup plan? And, and knowing the different tools that are available. So in our case, we had a 457 deferred compensation plan that was in our tool belt. That was great because we don’t get penalized for early withdraws. Knowing that you can withdraw from your 401. net 401k, you’re Roth, your contributions can be, you know, so like understanding what options are available when you’re not of retirement age was really helpful to just to think about how to work through all of that.
And that gave us a target. And once we got there, then we had to work on, okay, are we really doing this? That was probably harder. And then. Are we actually going to spend that 4. 57 for what we had planned on? Or should we just start working and making more money? I think that was the other option, too. Like, should we just get jobs along the way and work remote?
Well, you know, all of those things, the mental stuff that goes with it is pretty tricky.
In practice, have you spent as much money as you thought? More or less? Less money than we expected. Less money. That’s good. That’s fantastic.
Hey, I real quick. Let me bring something that has been mentally good helping my transition.
I bought built a big cash reserve after I retired. So I’m burning down that cash reserve before I go into my 401ks and my IRAs and all my stocks. I’m not liquid. Those things have been Haven’t been touched. And I think that’s been very added to my peace of mind because I’m not drawing down from those accounts.
And if the stock market’s dipping and going down, I’m not, I’m not feeling stressed that I have to pull money out. So it’s nice to have that cash reserve and burn that cash reserve down first. It’s just mentally, uh, giving me peace
of mind. Len, very briefly, when it comes to social security for you, are you still looking at deferring that as long as possible to keep that building or are you going to take it
early?
No, I’m going to hold off until, and everybody’s going to say I’m stupid, but I’m going to wait until I’m 70 if I can. I don’t know. I
mean, you know, you don’t know until you die whether you made the right move. I know. Well,
the bottom line is, you know, you run the numbers, you’re going to get the same amount of money, whether you take it.
So you’re betting on how long you’re going to live really,
that’s, that’s all I do like the idea of betting on yourself to live longer. Yeah, that’s a good, that’s a good bet. Better bet on me, uh, doc fill in the blanks for you. How things change with investing with saving for you. So
they haven’t changed a huge bit for me in the sense that my wife is still working, so we have some income, and even though I’ve kind of retired from things I have to do, I still have some income from things that I do for joy and pleasure.
Is your goal to have her continue working so you can be more financially independent? No, no, no,
no, no. I’ve actually been asking her to leave work for the last few years. And she’s trying to decide when she’s ready to actually leave work, but we probably spend more actually we’re the rare, I looked at what we’ve been spending over the last six to 12 months.
And I’m like, wow, that’s a lot of money you’re spending. So we’ve actually loosened the reins quite a bit, which I think makes us different
than most. That is so interesting. I think the big takeaway there is how individual this is, but also I think a big takeaway is just how much planning really goes into it.
It can’t be, I’m just going to go play golf or travel. I mean, uh, Heidi, how many bears did you see, by the way? Black bear or grizzly bear? Oh, well, now we’re, that’s a flex
right there. I think we saw nine grizzlies and something like 22, 23. I actually know, I think we were in the thirties. I think we hit 30 on the black bears.
Some pretty intense, like cool
encounters too. That’s what you need to plan on, is how many bears am I going to see? That’s, that’s it. All right. That’s going to do it for, for today. Doug, uh, we’re going to skip the community calendar today because we’re recording late and Doc G’s got to flee the, flee the place here.
But let’s talk about what’s going on in your communities. We’ll have our guest of honor go last. Lem, what’s coming up at lempenso. com, my friend. Well,
I did a greatest hits of, of, you know, my, my national versus store brand challenge. If you want the CliffsNotes of 13 years of those challenges, I go over the five worst performing store brand items.
If you’ve ever wondered. The
worst performing, worst performing,
the ones where you know what, you get what you pay for. You better stick with the national
brands because you’re surprised that in a lot of cases, the store brand comes out really well. Oh, and
probably, probably more than half the cases of the store brand comes out very well.
But I’ve, I, uh, went through all of my challenges of more than a dozen over the years, and I pulled out the five worst performing products that were store brand that you should stay away from.
I’m going to put my name back in the hat, Len. The next time you do the ice cream taste test, I want to be there.
I’m getting on a plane. I’m going to LA. I’m coming down to the bunker and I will taste test ice cream, which I mean, you guys will regret because I’m like, yeah, I
will love it. I hope you have some ventilation and fans set up in the bunker, Len. It’ll be great for me.
But maybe not, maybe not great for the honeybee.
Uh, Doc, what’s going on at earn and invest?
Well, coming up Monday, I have Maya Corbick, who wrote a book from piggy banks to stocks, the ultimate guide for the young investor. And we talk about kids and investing.
Kids and investing. Heidi, thanks for hanging out with us again, and I’m glad that three months later, you’re still live.
Number one. That’s fantastic. But what’s coming up on Ordinary Sherpa?
Yeah, so we’re transitioning back within the next, well, we think we are. Actually, we’re going to spend a little bit of time at home to decide what is next. And we may continue traveling. We may ease off a little bit. So there’s a lot in store.
I think the podcast is probably the best place to stay in touch or on the email list. You can hear all the crazy stories about what’s happening. on a weekly basis.
You talk about your time in Alaska. You interview your husband, I think, on one of the episodes recently. And our good friend, uh, Brad Barrett was, is just on the show.
Yes. Brad’s one of those longtime friends and inspirations behind a lot of the things we did with travel rewards and stuff like that. So it’s always kind of fun to see how different families can be, um, but still very inspiring.
Yes, well, he’s inspiring to me because he loves board games like I do. So yeah, he’s super dude.
All right, we will link to all of those on our show notes page and but I think Doug you’re gonna handle that as well in the credits. But before we get to the credits, what should we have learned today Doug? Well, Joe first
take some advice from Heidi Dusek Set big goals and don’t wait on them. Time is a diminishing resource you can’t get back.
Second, on the other hand, if the big audacious goal creates anxiety for you, maybe take a page out of Doc G’s playbook. Set the bar low and just be happy. In other words, C’s get degrees, baby! That’s a big lesson! Maybe I won’t move to Australia. I just learned everything there is trying to kill you. I mean, even the koalas carry chlamydia.
Hand to God, those cuddly little bastards are hiding a dirty little secret. You can’t trust anything down there. Thanks to Heidi Dussek for joining us today. You’ll find the Ordinary Sherpa podcast wherever you’re listening to us right now. We’ll also include links in our show notes at stackingbenjamins.
com. Thanks to Doc G for hanging out with us today. You’ll also find his fabulous Earn Invest podcast wherever you listen to finer podcasts. And thanks to Len Penzo for joining us today. You can find Len at LenPenzo. com slash Only suckers make podcasts, I just appear on them so other people do the hard work.
This show is the property of SB Podcasts LLC, copyright 2023, and is created by Joe Saul Sehy. Our producer is Karen Repine. This show was written by Lisa Curry, who’s also the host of the Long Story Long podcast, with help from me, Joe, and Doc G from the Earn Invest podcast. Kevin Bailey helps us take a deeper dive into all the topics covered on each episode in our newsletter called The 201.
You’ll find the 411 on all things money at The 201. Just visit stackingbenjamins. com slash 201. Wonder how beautiful we all are? Of course you’ll never know if you don’t check out our YouTube version of this show, Engineered by Tina Ikenberg. Then you’ll see once and for all that I’m the best thing going for this podcast.
Once we bottle up all this goodness, we ship it to our engineer, the amazing Steve Stewart. Steve helps the rest of our team sound nearly as good as I do right now. Want to chat with friends about the show later? Mom’s friend Gertrude and Kate Yunkin are our social media coordinators and Gertrude is the room mother in our Facebook group called The Basement.
Say hello when you see us posting online. To join all the basement fun with other stackers type stackingbenjamins. com slash basement Not only should you not take advice from these nerds, don’t take advice from people you don’t know. This show is for entertainment purposes only. Before making any financial decisions, speak with a real financial advisor.
I’m Joe’s mom’s neighbor, Doug, and we’ll see you next time, back here at the Stacking Benjamins show.
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